PLA article reveals new horizons and risks of smart warfare
"As the militarized application of artificial intelligence becomes more and more extensive and in-depth, the shape and appearance of war are undergoing profound changes.Due to the outstanding computational power, thinking power, planning power and execution power of AI, intelligent war presents the accuracy, autonomy, flexibility and high efficiency that far exceed the informationization war in terms of operational judgment, operational planning, operational decision-making and operational implementation of specific actions", writes Chen Li Wu Zhi in China Military Network.
"...in intelligent warfare, the emergence effect of the war system will be greatly stimulated, resulting in instability and disorder in the operation of war, and it is even more difficult to make rational judgments based on the comparison of strength and weakness..."
"However, on the other hand, with the in-depth intervention or even partial replacement of the traditional human brain thinking by artificial intelligence, the human phenomenon of war not only fails to become clearer, but on the contrary, significantly increases its own "fuzzy" characteristics, revealing the phenomenon of chaotic intertwining of multi-factors and fading of the original boundaries, leading to an overall war with the characteristics of precision at the micro level".
As a result, "the overall "fuzziness" with the precise characteristics at the micro level has gradually become an unavoidable evolutionary trend of intelligent warfare".
Blurring of the boundaries of war
Various unmanned platforms supported by intelligent technology and intelligent methods of warfare based on supercomputing power have profoundly changed the mode of operation and confrontation of war. The outward manifestation of this is that the scope of traditional war has been infinitely extended, and there no longer exists a definite and clear boundary.
"Clausewitz said, 'Action in war is like movement in a means of resistance.' The ability to overcome resistance to war directly determines the degree of control over war. Traditional war resistance is relatively clear, but in intelligent warfare, due to the massive emergence of various elements in the war system and doubly complex interactions, it not only causes the irregular movement of war and the 'confused' state of the supercognitive category, but also inevitably gives rise to more complex types of resistance."
"For example, intelligent combat platforms are able to fight without blind zones in extremely far, extremely high, extremely deep, extremely hot, extremely cold and other extreme domains due to the breakthrough of the physical limits of traditional equipment and geographic separation, thus blurring the boundaries of the battlefield space; intelligent combat clusters are not subject to the limitations of any human physiological conditions, and are able to realize all-time online, timely response and instantaneous action, thus blurring the boundaries of the battlefield time; intelligentIntelligent combat units can cover all geographic space, and can simultaneously carry out the various combat functions of traditional land, sea, air, sky and electricity specialized units, thus blurring the boundaries of military and military functions; intelligent combat system breaks through the traditional combat elements of a single combat function, and is able to unify the physical kill, psychological kill, spiritual kill and cognitive kill to carry out a comprehensive strike, thus blurring the boundaries of the effectiveness of the kill; intelligent chargeIntelligent accusation system fully integrates various command links and command networks, and can realize multi-level combat command and multi-area action control of one linkage, thus blurring the boundaries of command and control. Therefore, the more the development of intelligent technical means, the more the potential of war is released indefinitely, the original war boundary is constantly in the process of "breaking - reconstruction - and then breaking - reconstruction" cycle, and this is itsThis is the essence behind the 'fuzzy'".
Blurring of the Subjects of War
Generally speaking, people are the main body of war activities and dynamic forces, weapons are made by people, but also by people to improve, master and use, the level of human awareness, military quality, cultural quality, courageous spirit and cleverness and intelligence determines the degree of the effectiveness of weapons.And with the comprehensive expansion of artificial intelligence in the field of war, the relationship between human beings and weapons and so on is facing a major adjustment, resulting in the increasing blurring of the traditional subject of war.
On the one hand, with the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence technology, intelligent unmanned autonomous systems may become the main combat force, which has the ability of autonomous judgment, autonomous thinking, autonomous decision-making, autonomous action, will constitute a major challenge to the status of the main body of the war of human beings, "people in the loop" to "people outside the loop" transformation.In the circuit outside the circuit" trend of transformation, the main position of people in the war may be increasingly weakened.
On the other hand, due to the penetration of strong artificial intelligence into the military field, ordinary people, civil organizations, and non-state entities can extensively and deeply participate in war activities with the help of intelligent technology and equipment, and the subject status of military personnel in war may be increasingly eroded.That is to say, the subject of intelligent war is more complex, which can be either a sovereign state or a non-state actor; it can be either an armed force or the general public; it can be either a person or a machine with intelligent thinking.In the event of autonomous combat by unmanned intelligent combat clusters, it may be necessary to redefine who the subject of war actually is.
Therefore, the ambiguity of the subject of war makes it difficult for us to define the new type of war in the age of intelligence with the connotation of traditional war, and it is necessary to combine the rapid development of intelligent technology to continuously expand the cognition of the phenomenon of war.
"...with the application of artificial intelligence technology in warfare and the practice of unmanned combat, the traditional ethical rules of warfare, centered on biological and social beings, have been severely and unprecedentedly impacted, manifesting themselves in the impossibility of precisely defining the subjects of authority and responsibility, the manner of authorization, the purposes of application, and the intensity of use of intelligent weapons, and the obvious inadequacy of the binding force of the rules on unmanned combat."
Blurring of the course of the war
Due to the intelligent weapons and equipment with all-time all-domain all-dimensional combat effectiveness, so that the intelligent war no longer present the traditional line mode, it is difficult to determine the standard or landmark events on the war process for a clear stage division.Its specific performance is that the intelligent game and battlefield confrontation from beginning to end to maintain a high intensity frequency, "people stopping the machine non-stop" "people resting the war does not rest" will become a typical feature, so that the intelligent war only has the beginning and the end of the two states.Intelligent forces and unmanned platforms have the combat characteristics of multi-domain maneuver, gathering and dispersing, dynamic concentration, and systematic release of energy, and cross-domain linkage and multi-domain strikes will become the main mode of combat, so that the intelligent war will no longer have the traditional battlefield line of contact, troop assembly point, and front and rear divisions, and wherever it can be reached is the battlefield.Intelligent embodiment is a systematic overall autonomous function, causing the war to break through the traditional military conflict framework model, and in the intelligent technology and other advanced technology clusters under the penetration of the adhesive role of the political, military, economic, social, scientific and technological and cultural fields into a wide range of fusion, network communications, finance and energy, biomedicine and food and trade and other industries has become an important lifeblood, so that the results of the confrontation in any area and theinteractions may have an uncertain impact on the overall process of intelligent war.Therefore, intelligent warfare is highly intricate and complex in terms of time and space, as well as macroscopic and microscopic fields, and it is difficult to form a clear-cut progress bar.The major battles in the traditional war, which are dominated by large corps and may decide the end of the war, will appear less and less, and it is difficult for people to judge the overall direction of the war by the battle situation in one place and at one time.
"Therefore, if intelligent warfare consistently exceeds the limits of violence, it will inevitably lead to a series of new ethical questions and dilemmas of war regulation, and the ambiguous space of 'what can be done' is likely to become a gray area of decision-making on war..."
War runs fuzzy
War has its inherent rules of operation, which generally show the strong take the initiative, strong attack and weak defense of the basic rules, its operation mechanism is more patterned, the war system is more stable, and it is not easy to appear serious violations of the rules, and dramatically subvert the strength and weakness of the battlefield situation. However, in intelligent warfare, the emergency effect of the war system will be greatly stimulated, resulting in instability and disorder in the operation of war, and it is even more difficult to make rational judgments based on the comparison of strength and weakness. The so-called emergence effect refers to the phenomenon whereby a large number of microscopic individuals, after interaction, spontaneously exhibit some new attributes, laws or patterns in general.
In the environment of intelligent warfare, the elements of warfare are extremely abundant and, in the complicated interactions, exhibit irregular and irregular forms of movement and expression, which makes it impossible to see and judge the internal tendency of warfare. However, it is precisely for this reason that massive and intelligent war elements, endowed with the capacity for self-adaptation, interaction and self-organization, are more likely to evolve extremely complex, changeable and unpredictable behavioral paths.
War resistance blurred
War resistance refers to the various hindering factors that prevent the course of war. Clausewitz said, “Action in war is like movement in a means of resistance.” The ability to overcome resistance to war directly determines the degree of control over war. Traditional war resistance is relatively clear, but in intelligent warfare, due to the massive emergence of various elements in the war system and doubly complex interactions, it not only causes the irregular movement of war and the “confused” state of the supercognitive category, but also inevitably gives rise to more complex types of resistance.
Not only the traditional war resistance continues to play a role, but some new types of war resistance have also appeared, including political and legal resistance, moral and ethical resistance, economic and technological resistance, organizational structure resistance, battlefield main body resistance, battlefield environment resistance, temporal and spatial dislocation resistance, algorithmic effectiveness resistance, fire resistance, etc. These war resistances will be more complicated in the future when AI transforms from artificial intelligence to artificial intelligence, which is a new type of war resistance, and they will be more complex.
These war resistances will accelerate the evolution, random reorganization, superimposed enhancement and nonlinear expansion in the process of continuous evolution of AI from weak to strong and the complex background.
Ethical ambiguity of war
Warfare, as a human social phenomenon characterized by violence, has in its long history developed a specific ethical system that serves as a guide and constraint, thus preventing the irrational expansion of the destructive power of war. However, with the application of artificial intelligence technology in warfare and the practice of unmanned combat, the traditional ethical rules of warfare, centered on biological and social beings, have been severely and unprecedentedly impacted, manifesting themselves in the impossibility of precisely defining the subjects of authority and responsibility, the manner of authorization, the purposes of application, and the intensity of use of intelligent weapons, and the obvious inadequacy of the binding force of the rules on unmanned combat.
In other words, there will be a serious discrepancy between the humanized rules of war and the inhumane war behaviors of intelligent equipment, which may lead to the collapse of the original ethical framework of war in the age of intelligence. Therefore, if intelligent warfare consistently exceeds the limits of violence, it will inevitably bring a series of new ethical issues and dilemmas of war regulation, and the ambiguous space of “what can be done” and “what cannot be done” is likely to become a gray area of war decision-making, which is also urgently needed for the international community to reach a new consensus and implement new regulations.
Comments